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Monthly Archives: January 2015

Driving is a risky business—a single glance away from the road is all it takes to cause an accident. More than one in four car collisions reported to police each year are rear-end crashes, a number that Chevrolet is interested in lowering. To help reduce the number of rear-end crashes, the American carmaker has created the Chevrolet Forward Automatic Braking System, a technology that puts the brakes on before your car can collide with the vehicle in front of it.

“Many of us have been in driving situations where the car ahead of us suddenly slows—or we momentarily look away at the wrong time—and we have to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision,” said Raymond J. Kiefer, General Motors’ Active Safety Technical Fellow. “Front Automatic Braking provides a layer of driver assistance beyond Forward Collision Alert systems to help prevent this common crash situation.”

The Forward Collision Alert technology will come as an available option in several 2015 Chevrolet models, including the Silverado, Malibu, Equinox, and Traverse, though only the Impala, Tahoe, and Suburban will come with the available Front Automatic Braking System that will automatically slow or stop the vehicle.

For more information on the Chevrolet Forward Automatic Braking System, stop in to or contact Bill Walsh Chevrolet today!

For months now, Chevrolet has been teasing us with hints of the next-generation Volt. Now, the North American International Auto Show is finally here and we get to see the 2016 Volt in Detroit.

With an updated design and powertrain, the new Volt now offers up to 50 miles of electric driving range and a total range of more than 400 miles with the gasoline-powered generator. With regular charging, this should allow many drivers to travel more than 1,000 miles between stops at the gas station.

“The 2016 Chevrolet Volt provides our owners with a no-compromise electric driving experience,” said Alan Batey, president of GM North America, in a statement. “We believe our engineering prowess combined with data from thousands of customers allows us to deliver the most capable plug-in vehicle in the industry.”

Some of the updates for the 2016 Volt include five-passenger seating, a stronger body structure, quieter ride, a new 1.5-liter range-extending engine that runs on regular unleaded fuel, a lighter more efficient two-motor drive unit, and an improved regenerative braking system.

And, to top off all of these fantastic updates, the Volt now has a sleeker, sportier design.

Chevrolet strives to top itself every year when it comes to safety, always pursuing the latest technology to keep drivers and passengers safe behind the wheel. Similarly, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) chooses its top safety picks each year.

This year, the IIHS has chosen four Chevrolet models as Top Safety Picks: the 2015 Chevrolet Spark, Volt, Malibu, and Equinox. Each one of these vehicles was heavily tested by the IIHS and selected carefully.

The vice president of Global Vehicle Safety at GM, Jeff Boyer, commented on the IIHS win in a recent press release, saying “Having these four vehicles named 2015 IIHS Top Safety Picks is a great achievement,” adding that programs such as these help customers to pick safe cars.

For more details on the Top Safety Pick Chevy models or to check out our many safe and reliable Chevrolet vehicles, visit us at Bill Walsh Chevrolet.

Coming soon, Cadillacs will be streaming high-resolution video inside the cabin, traight to the rear-view mirror. No, it won’t be the latest Oscar-nominees. It’ll be live streaming video from a rear camera. Granted, perhaps it’s not the most entertaining video but for the sake of safety, it’s a huge advancement.

What is it like to drive a vehicle with a Cadillac streaming-video rear-view mirror? “The closest comparison to this kind of rear vision would be driving a convertible with the top down,” says Travis Hester, Cadillac CT6 executive chief engineer. “The streaming video is a significant enhancement,” he added. We at Bill Walsh Chevrolet agree wholeheartedly!

According to PC Magazine, “A perfectly positioned video camera can improve the driver’s field of vision by about 300 percent—four times better than a standard rearview mirror.” It helps that the camera offers an enhanced view in dim conditions. It’s coated with a water-shedding substance. The image is also widened and in high-definition.

GM has released yet another preview of its next-generation 2016 Chevrolet Volt, via a short video that features product chief Mark Reuss. In the video, Reuss removes a camouflaged 2016 Volt, revealing the entire car, and takes it for a drive—while explaining its new regenerative braking system.

This new system is activated by a couple of paddles right behind the steering wheel, allowing drivers to change the amount of regenerative braking and giving them the ability to suit the vehicle to their needs.

For more information, you can watch the video yourself, here on YouTube, on Chevrolet’s official channel. The 2016 Volt will be released entirely, with all details shared, at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit mid-January.

Hopefully, the innovative 2016 Chevrolet Volt regenerative braking will inspire similar technology in the cars of the future. Until then, feel free to visit us at Bill Walsh Chevrolet, where you’ll find many Chevrolet models to fit your needs.